Roll Call: “Congressional Democrats continue to be baffled by — and frustrated with — the White House’s legislative strategy, with many aides questioning the wisdom of offering a compromise budget before negotiations have even begun.”
College Student Schools an Economist in Economics
College student Zach Kopplin, who has been fighting against the teaching of creationism in public schools, smacked down economist Stephen Moore on Real Time with Bill Maher.
It’s definitely worth watching.
Jindal Forced to Pull Tax Plan
“After months of pushing a dramatic proposal to swap the state’s income and corporate taxes in favor of higher, broader sales tax, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) is shelving his proposal,” the New Orleans Times-Picayune reports.
“In a speech opening the 2013 legislative session, Jindal is telling lawmakers that he is taking his plan off the table even as he said he will not ‘pout’ or ‘take his ball and go home,’ instead asking lawmakers to develop and pass their own version of a plan to phase out the state’s income tax, according to a copy of the governor’s prepared remarks.”
Jindal’s approval has plummeted in Louisiana since he announced his tax plan.
Bonus Quote of the Day
“That’s exactly why the establishment Republicans supported Romney and McCain, because they didn’t emphasize these positions, and they were going to run on one issue, which was limited government and lower taxes. All of which are good things, and I support them, but I think what they showed is that they’re insufficient.”
— Rick Santorum, quoted by CNN, saying that ignoring social issues caused the last two GOP defeats in presidential elections.
Johnson is Latest to Evolve on Gay Marriage
Sen. Tim Johnson (D-S.D.) became the latest Democratic senator to embrace gay marriage, the Washington Post reports.
Said Johnson: “After lengthy consideration, my views have evolved sufficiently to support marriage equality legislation. This position doesn’t require any religious denomination to alter any of its tenets; it simply forbids government from discrimination regarding who can marry whom.”
Racial Minorities Wait Longer to Vote
A new paper from MIT professor Charles Stewart finds that African Americans waited an average of 23 minutes to vote in the last presidential election, Hispanics waited 19 minutes and whites waited just 12 minutes.
“While there are other individual-level demographic difference present in the responses, none stands out as much as race. For instance, the average wait time among those with household incomes less than $30,000 was 12 minutes, compared to 14 minutes for those in households with incomes greater than $100,000. Strong Democrats waited an average of 16 minutes, compared to an average of 11 minutes for strong Republicans. Respondents who reported they had an interest in news and public affairs ‘most of the time’ waited an average of 13.2 minutes, compared to 12.8 minutes among those who had ‘hardly any’ interest.”
New GOP Site Doesn’t Mention Party Affiliation
The new website for the National Republican Congressional Committee “has earned a lot of attention in the past week for its bold new attempt to win the internet and elections by imitating BuzzFeed. On the website today, you can find items like, ’13 Animals That Are Really Bummed on ObamaCare’s Third Birthday’ or a video of President Obama whiffing 20 free throws. There’s more substantive fare too, like a polling memo on the Keystone XL pipeline,” Salon reports.
“One thing you won’t find on the front page, however, is the word ‘Republican,’ except for at the very bottom in a disclaimer box that reads, ‘Paid for by the National Republican Congressional Committee.'”
Top 5 Issues Dividing Democrats
The Week: “For liberals indulging in schadenfreude, the post-election fracturing of the Republican Party and the conservative movement has been enormously satisfying. But it’s not the most important story in Washington. In fact, the most pressing truth — the one that really threatens to derail President Obama’s second term — is the quieter, wonkier friction within the Democratic Party.”
Filibuster of Gun Bill Could Derail GOP Rebranding
If Sens. Pat Toomey (R-PA) and Joe Manchin (D-WV) “can’t come to a deal on expanded background checks sometime in the next few days, President Obama’s proposed gun legislation seems likely to be headed toward a filibuster led by some of its most conservative members,” the Washington Post reports.
“Politically speaking, such a move could have short-term benefits for Republicans but also creates real risks for further damage to the party’s already tarnished brand in the long(er) term… What’s good politics for Republicans in South Dakota or Nebraska or Mississippi is not necessarily a good thing for the GOP’s attempts to rebrand itself. Remember that expanded background checks have the support of roughly nine in ten Americans – a sort of no-brainer issue that typically guarantees congressional action of some sort.”
Political Crime is Out of Control in New York
BuzzFeed: “in the past six years, members of the New York State Senate have been
about three times more likely than average Americans to run afoul of the
law. And majority leaders have been over ten times more likely.”
Lame-Duck FEC Invites Scofflaws
Roll Call: “Already short one officer, the Federal Election Commission will soon have a dubious distinction: As of April 30, all five of its remaining commissioners will be serving expired terms.”
“In theory, composed of three Republicans and three Democrats, the FEC has been deadlocked for so long that, some argue, the agency could hardly grind to more of a halt. But the FEC’s growing backlog of work, protracted stalemates and failure to enforce or even explain the rules is taking a toll. At a minimum, political players are increasingly confused about how to reconcile already-complicated election laws with the Supreme Court’s 2010 ruling to deregulate political spending.”
Quote of the Day
“Right now I’m grateful to live in a city, in a state and a country where I strongly support my mayor, and my governor, and my president, and my senators, and my representative. If at some point that weren’t true and I thought I could make a meaningful and measurably greater impact, you know, I’d have to ask and answer that question.”
— Chelsea Clinton, quoted by NBC News, on whether she would run for political office.
Would $100 Million Help Hillary Clear the Field?
Top Democratic operatives tell Time that Hillary Clinton will need to raise $100 million over the next 20 months if she hopes to clear the field of serious Democratic challengers.
Said one: “I would think you’d want an eye popping number to clear the field. I think the $100 million commitment would say to potential opponents ‘think before you jump to your death.””
Veteran Advocates Turning on Obama
Daily Beast: “America’s 23 million veterans are facing an unprecedented crisis as the backlog of disability claims at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has grown to nearly 1 million–more than double what it was when President Obama took office.”
“Given the breadth of the crisis, this widespread outrage isn’t surprising. But perhaps what is surprising is that for the first time, several prominent veteran advocates who’ve been staunch supporters of Obama are now joining the chorus of critics who say the president has badly mishandled the VA.”
The Mission to Turn Texas Blue
Bloomberg reports on how Democratic activists “have come to Texas on a mission as large as the state’s 261,000 square miles: to capitalize on the surge in Hispanic population and turn the Lone Star State into a two-party competitive one instead of the place where the Republican nominee has carried every presidential election since 1976.”
Brown Wouldn’t Be First from Massachusetts
As former Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) mulls a possible U.S. Senate bid from New Hampshire, Smart Politics notes that 25% of the 63 U.S. Senators in the Granite State’s history were born in one of its bordering three states including 18% from Massachusetts, while nearly 40% were educated in the Bay State.
Obama Budget Hit from Both Sides
First Read notes the early word on President Obama’s budget — to be released on Wednesday — is that it “has been rejected by both the right and left: Boehner opposes the president’s call for new revenues to go along with these entitlement cuts, while the left is furious about the proposed reforms to Social Security and Medicare. The question is whether this anger from the left gives Republicans a second look.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) on Meet the Press: “This is somewhat encouraging. His overall budget’s not going to make it, but he has sort of made a step forward in the entitlement reform process that would allow a guy like me to begin to talk about flattening the tax code and generating more revenue.”
California Billionaire Targets Lynch in Massachusetts
Hedge fund executive Thomas Steyer is bombarding Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA) “with theatrical attacks from the skies and from the streets. He has poured $400,000 into the Massachusetts race so far, bankrolling planes with banners, trucks with video screens, and canvassers who plan to knock on 300,000 doors statewide,” the Boston Globe reports.
Steyer has seized on Lynch’s primary campaign against Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) “as a test case of his ability to elevate the issue of climate change in the political discourse.”
“Last month, he burst onto the scene with a sharply worded threat to Lynch, warning him that if he did not change his mind and oppose the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline ‘by high noon on Friday,’ he would launch an aggressive campaign to defeat him in the April 30 primary.”
